The thing about living in a small city is that changes are not something that go unnoticed. Businesses opening or closing. People being born or dying. Buildings being built or torn down. You either hear about it or see it firsthand.

Yesterday on my way home from work I passed a small home on a corner that I've seen hundreds of times. Thousands of times? Except it wasn't there. All I saw was a pile of debris...

At first I thought "Huh. Maybe I imagined that a house was there!" But a quick check on Google Maps Street View revealed that there had indeed been a house there...

But here's the thing... if you look a little closer, there's actually a few changes going on here that I never knew happened. The massive tree behind the former house is gone in the new photo. The tree next to that is also gone. And the building to the left has been extended as you can see from the change in color on the roof.

So maybe changes can happen in a small city that go unnoticed.

I did see this change, but I have no idea why it happened. Perhaps the house was condemned. Maybe the house was too small and the owner wanted to replace it with something bigger. Or maybe the property sold, but the land was more valuable than the small home on it and they bought it to demolish it and build a McMansion. I don't recall ever seeing a "For Sale" sign, but that doesn't mean anything. I could find out all the juicy details with one phone call (I know exactly who would know), but I guess I'm not as curious as I used to be when I was younger. Change happens. You can't stop progress. Yadda yadda yadda.

One thing's for sure, I'm certain I'll notice what happens next.

Probably.

I'm not as observant as I was when I was younger too.

As I mentioned way too many times, my favorite thing to do at Walt Disney World is eat. I love their beautifully-themed, over-priced, high-end restaurants which have delicious food.

But I also like the snacky things... like the churros, popcorn, and fries. It's all good because you're in Walt Disney World. But you know the one snack thing that I love more than any other? Dole Whip. My favorite is the original Pineapple Dole Whip you can get in Adventureland. But there's also Orange Bird's Sunshine Tree Terrace, which has Orange and other flavors (like Strawberry). Disney Springs and some of the Disney hotels also have various varieties of Dole Whip... all of them very tasty.

I had mentioned to my friends who actually work at the resort how I was sad I couldn't have a Dole Whip Float whenever I want... and how jealous I was that they could have it whenever they want.

They're response? "Oh but you can!"

And they gifted me a big bag of Dole Whip mix (that they got on Amazon)...

The stuff is dairy-free and vegan, fat-free, cholesterol-free, gluten-free, peanut-free, and totally delicious. All you have to do is mix it with water! The bag makes 89 servings(!) and is meant to be run through a soft-serve machine. I don't have one of those, but I do have a Ninja CREAMi machine. You just mix 2 cups of water with 2/3 cup of mix, freeze it in the CREAMi canister overnight, then run it through on the "Frozen Yogurt" setting. Simple.

And it tastes exactly like what you get at Walt Disney World. Probably because it is what you get at Disney World. You can pipe it through a big star-tip if you want it to look more like Dole Whip, but it'll take practice to make it swirl correctly...

Don't worry, my swirl with get better as I work on it!

   
There's also a "copycat" recipe floating around which you can make in your blender (if you don't have a soft serve or CREAMi machine) that we tried...

• 1 scoop of vanilla ice cream
• 2 cups of frozen pineapple chunks
• 4oz. of pineapple juice

It's tasty... but not as sweet as the real stuff (which might be a plus for some people). It tastes much more like actual pineapple than Dole Whip does. It also lacks the various stabilizers and gums which makes the original so darn creamy. We struggled to get my Ninja Blender to mix the stuff properly, so we ended up mixing in more pineapple juice. I think if I would have used more ice cream with it, then it might have tasted more authentic. For what it is, it's a terrific treat. But it ain't Dole Whip.

So...

If you love Dole Whip like I do, buying the actual mix will get you there. If you don't have a soft serve or CREAMi machine, you might try freezing the mixture in ice cube trays and pulverizing the cubes in a blender or food processor with a little pineapple juice to try and get it to work that way.

Then close your eyes, take a bite, and you're at a Disney park!

I had a very long post written for today... woke up to read through it before posting... then deleted it. I'm trying not to go on political rants because once I start, I tend to not be able to stop myself. Suffice to say that I am sick and tired of of political parties making up lies about their opponents when there are plenty of truths that they should be calling out.

What started my rant is the never-ending claim by Republicans that women are having post-birth abortions... WHICH AREN'T EVEN A THING. And claiming otherwise vilifies and endangers women's lives. And I simply do not understand why this country hates women so much that this is where we're at.

But rather than continue down that road and end up with yet another post I'll have to delete, here's a video by a doctor I found which breaks it all down better than I ever could. Stop vilifying women for seeking care and endangering their lives with this shit (here's a link in case TikTok is being a dick).

When you lie like this, this is what it leads to (here's a link in case TikTok is being a dick)...

There's a lot of things that we can "agree to disagree" on. This isn't fucking one of them.

   
Today I spent 20 minutes trying to explain that a photo was not real but AI-generated. FML.

Indoor cats have serious FOMO when it comes to the Great Outdoors.

Which is why I built Jake and Jenny a catio, so they can have the illusion of enjoying the Great Outdoors while still being safe. But it's not just the catio... they have windows too. And they really, really love being distracted by the world outside the windows. Many times they've been sitting next to me on the couch or in bed and will go running to a window to investigate a bird that flew by or some rival cat moving in on their territory.

Yesterday morning Jake was next to me while I was in bed working. He was washing his face after breakfast when he suddenly bolted over my laptop to the window...

Then he bolted to the other window. Then he bolted to the window in my office next door. And then I heard him run downstairs into the catio.

Jeny, of course heard the disruption and bolted downstairs to see what was happening. She didn't want to miss out.

No idea what it was. My guess is a new cat they haven't seen before.

But it could have been aliens, in which case I'm the one who was missing out.

Didn't my weekend just get started a minute ago? How is it that it's almost over? Again? Oh well, it's not like this blog is suffering along with me... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Potential! I wasn't going to tune into the new ABC show High Potential because it's a remake of a French series I've seen (called HIP: High Intellectual Potential). But then I saw Kaitlin Olson was starring, and decided it would certainly be unique enough to merit a watch, even if the stories were the same...

I like it. Same but different. And Kaitlin Olson continues to impress.

   
• Murder Bear! This year's Fat Bear Week has been a real drama-fest this year. Fat Bear 469 murdered Fat Bear 402 on camera. And apparently murder is disqualifying behavior, because Fat Bear 469 is nowhere to be found on the bracket...

On the discussion board somebody wrote "Rest in Power, Fat Bear 402," and so that's where we're at now.

   
• Talent! The number of actors passing lately has been really disheartening. Now John Amos (of SO many amazing roles in TV and movies) and Ken Page (whose iconic voice gave life to Oogie Boogie in The Nightmare Before Christmas) are gone. John Amos hit with Good Times, but my favorite roles were from Coming to America and The West Wing (where his talent was really allowed to shine)...

And Ken Page? Oh man...

Disney may have disavowed The Nightmare Before Christmas when it debuted, but they have sure been leaning into the characters hard in recent years. Not only does Oogie Boogie dominate Halloween at Disneyland with his Oogie Boogie Bash, but he was just added as a racer in Disney Speedstorm...

Rest in Peace, sirs. The characters you created will live on.

   
• So Not Weird! They need to get Haley Joel Osment on Saturday Night Live stat...

I don't know how it's possible, but he captures J.D. Vance better than J.D. Vance does.

   
• UNSUBSCRIBE!!! I love adidas footwear. Their Terrex Swift R2 Mid Gtx boots are the best pair of shoes I've ever owned. They're the only shoes that I spent money to have repaired when they wore out (twice) because I just didn't want to let them go. Eventually I purchased replacements for my beloved shoes. But instead of going through Zappos.com as I usually do, I made the huge mistake of buying them direct from Adidas. And now I get fucking emails from them EVERY DAMN DAY. How many fucking pairs of shoes do you think i need? My pair of Terrex Swift R2 Mid Gtx lasted five years (with repairs). And here's the deal... YOU CANNOT UNSUBSCRIBE BECAUSE THEIR UNSUBSCRIBE LINK DOESN'T WORK!

I abhor shit like this. I think this is actually illegal in Washington State? But here's where it gets worse. There is NO option on their website... none that I could find anyway... where you can tell them not to email you. All you can do is subscribe to more lists...

If I got an email once a month... even every-other-week, I wouldn't be phased. BUT EVERY FUCKING DAY?!? How is this anything less than harassment? Who the fuck could possibly want this?

   
• And speaking of WA! For the record? Johnny Cash was talking about Mattawa, WASHINGTON STATE IN 'MURICA... not Mattawa, Ontario in Canada... when he said he's been "everywhere."

Bet on it.

   
• THE AD LITERALLY WENT TO A PORN SITE YOU ASSHOLES!! Facebook doesn't give a single fuck about anything but money. You can report ads for linking to porn sites, but Facebook never looks at where their ads go when you click, so it doesn't matter. So long as the ad itself isn't pornographic, they don't care who sees it.

Well, I give up. Facebook closes their eyes to absolutely everything... porn, scams, abuse... they don't care so long as the money keeps rolling in.

   
And now back to the rest of my rapidly diminishing Sunday. Or what's left of it, anyways.

I don't have the money to buy a new iPhone Pro outright. They're $1000 minimum. Which is why I just lease my iPhone from Apple's "iPhone Upgrade Program." It's a known expense every month that I budget for, so I always upgrade when a new model comes out because the monthly cost is the same. This way I don't have to stress over my phone getting older and breaking or losing its value. I did it yet again this year.

Welcome to the new iPhone 16 Pro...

The tl;dr version is this: Unless you are a part of the iPhone Upgrade Program and don't mind being trapped in an eternal lease, I would not upgrade from the 15 Pro or 14 Pro unless you are after a very specific feature that's been upgraded. The general differences between these models are just so minor in the grand scheme of things. I'm betting most people will not be affected all that much. If you have an 13 Pro or earlier then, in my opinion, there's enough to make the jump (especially if you're in it for the camera). — The big new features for 16 Pro are "Camera Control" which is kinda a bust, a new 48MP Ultra-Wide lens which is nice but not essential, and "Tone Photographic Style" which is actually a fix for the shitty over-processing that iPhone keeps forcing on their users.

And here we go...

iPhone 16 PRO PROS

ULTRA-WIDE. Apple finally increased the megapixels on my favorite lens... the ultra-wide, taking it from 12MP to 48MP. It seems to help most with macro shooting more than wide-angle photos. The only thing left to go 48MP is the 5X lens, which desperately needs to be better, but is still languishing in 12MP. Because? 48MP is nice! Especially when you warm the tone and shift the flatness out...

iPhone 15 Pro Max Macro Lens

iPhone 16 Pro Max Macro Lens

iPhone 15 Pro Max Macro Lens — Zoomed

iPhone 16 Pro Max Macro Lens — Zoomed

iPhone 15 Pro Max Macro Lens

iPhone 16 Pro Max Macro Lens

TONE & STYLE. I'm just putting this out there... I fucking hate the Camera app in the 15 Pro Max. It shoots over-processed, boring, flat, shitty photos. There's no depth in the shadows. So there's no pop or subtlety to the images. Everything has an appearance that approaches cell-shaded. And, guess what, the default photos you get out of the 16 Pro Max are fucking worse. The difference is that you have the ability to set an "undertone look" which can offset this flat, boring, shitty, awful default. This photo I shared of Jake on Caturday had the highlights dialed back a bit in the Photos app, but that's the only adjustment I felt I had to make because it looked darn good right out of the camera...

The rich warmth comes from slightly leaning into the "Amber" style... but you can see that I also drop out of the horrific fucking blown out shadows by lowering the tone a bit so there was some actual depth...

I realize that if I don't like the iPhone's Camera app that there are dozens of others I could use. And I own a lot of them. But the convenience of the default app is too handy to ignore... especially now that you can do something to improve how it shoots. I'm not saying Apple redeemed themselves with the new camera because they still have shitty defaults that most people will never change, but at least there's a way out if you're aware it exists and figure out how to use it. And, as a bonus, you can apply/adjust the undertone settings after the photo has been taken! Nifty!

THE DISPLAY. It's aces. It was aces last time. I find it bizarre that the non-Pro models are still 60Mhz, but the Pro has a buttery-smooth 120Mhz that looks incredible. Thanks to the smaller bezels (and slightly larger size) you get a few more pixels too. The 16 Pro Max has 2868 × 1320 pixels vs. the 15 Pro Max 2796 × 1290.

MICROPHONES. The new microphone array is not being overhyped. It really does make a difference.

4K 120FPS. The fact that a frickin' phone can shoot 4K video at 120 frames per second is mind-blowing. Usually you have to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a RED Cinema camera to get stuff like that. Assuming you have an external high-speed drive attached to hold the massive file sizes it requires. Apparently Danny Boyle is shooting his new 28 Years Later movie on an iPhone 15 Pro Max, and I'll bet it will look great... even though he will undoubtedly be slapping on a lot of additional tech to his phone. Wonder what people will do with the iPhone 16 Pro?

BATTERY. Before my 16 arrived, I logged a Saturday with my 15 doing common tasks with plenty of video watching, app using, and photo-taking. Then I repeated that day with the 16 as closely as I could. Apple did not lie. I was already very pleased with the battery life, but it looks like I would get an extra 40 minutes (with plenty left on both phones) on the newer model. This will be very cool if I have to travel somewhere, because that's when I use the most battery.

PERFORMANCE. For years the iPhone's CPU/GPU performance has been more than adequate. And yet it keeps getting faster and more capable anyway. It's a good thing because it allows the photo processing to keep getting better. The fact that this benefits intensive apps (like some games) is just the icing on the cake.

iPhone 16 PRO CONS

CAMERA WEIRDNESS. In most ways the camera is the same as 15 Pro Max. In some ways the camera is better than 15 Pro Max (like the new Ultra-Wide), but in some ways it's strangely worse. This may be a settings issue that I have to work out, but it's frustrating to take a photo on the 15 and have it look perfectly fine, then take the same exact shot with the 16 and have it blown out in the highlights or isn't as defined. Where's that coming from? No idea. Fortunately, it's not common, but it's common enough to be irritating. I hope this is a software issue that can be rectified.

THE SIZE. I started buying the "Pro Max" because it was the only way to get the best camera. But now both Pro models get the same camera spread, so I was very close to going back to the "no-Max" size because Apple made the Max model larger than it used to be. And it's like WHY?!?. My God... you sell fucking iPads, stop turning your iPhones into iPads. Yes, the size increase is small, but it's still an increase.

CAMERA CONTROL. The feature I was most excited to get is the new "Camera Control" (AKA the "not-a-button button"). And while the idea is good, the implementation is awful. It looks like Apple tried to position the control in a spot that is supposed to be accessible to both landscape and portrait shooters. In doing so, it's fucking terribly positioned for both. They should have just picked one (landscape, obviously) and put it where you naturally want to position your finger instead of having to stretch across the screen in a weird way to reach it. In addition, the half-press access to the actual "controls" of "Camera Control" is janky as hell. I've tried to get used to it, but it's unwieldily and strange. It actually screws up my shots sometimes because it activates when I didn't intend it to, and the action of pressing it to take a photo is so odd that I end up moving the camera while trying to press down, thus un-framing my shot. I've adjusted the pressure and dwell sensitivity in the "Accessibility Settings" and I'm really hoping that I can get the hang of it. Because... yikes. Did ANYBODY use this fucking thing before they slapped it on their phone?!? I'm seriously wondering if I'm going to end up turning this not-a-button off so I don't have to worry about accidentally fucking up the settings on my shots. I sure hope Apple adjusts this in software soon, because in reality it's nothing like what they advertise, at last not for me...

AI MISSING. This phone's entire reason for being is AI. Apple has literally said that it's "Built from the ground up for Apple Intelligence." So where is it? Nowhere. The brand new iPhones aren't shipping with it. Sure you can install betas and developer betas to get it (like I have), but it's profoundly stupid to ship the new model without its hallmark feature. This is once again a company caring more about a date on the calendar than customer experience. Apple, who has more money than God, should seriously reevaluate how they're operating. Because this "It's coming, I promise!" bullshit in tech is getting old.

THE COLORWAYS. It's so FUCKING stupid how the cheaper iPhones always get the nicer colorways. I don't know how it was decided that getting extra features means getting stuck with these shitty, drab, morose, ugly colors... but here we are. I picked "Black Titanium" because it was the least shitty. And the cases Apple sells mostly follow suit. At least this year we get a bright yellow and a nice "ultramarine" case for the Pro models which let you pretend you don't have a boring-ass phone. I am sick to fucking death of Apple's "Pro" aesthetic, and wish they would get the fuck over themselves and give us at least ONE bright, fun color each year. Instead we get "desert"... Good Lord. For the second time we don't get a Product (RED) version in the non-Pro iPhone (we've never been given a Pro version ever). And no (RED) case again this year for any model. I'm guessing Apple has given up on it, since there's no (RED) Apple Watch this year either.

THE PRICE. Let's face it, the iPhone Pro models are insanely expensive. I honestly don't know that they're worth it when you can get a model from two years early for less money that's going to still be very good. This year things are even more confusing because the non-Pro models are not as far away from the Pro models. Both have an Action Button now. Shockingly, they both got the Camera Control feature as well. As if that wasn't enough, base iPhones leapfrogged a generation of Apple Silicon and are now at A18 chips which is more on parity with A18 Pro, when previous years were always a generation behind. No idea what Apple is thinking on that. My guess is that they are trying to make base models better so they can better compete with equivalent Android phones. But they're starting to compete with the Pro models as well. With better colors.

   
And there's my 2¢ on my new iPhone. I'm now very curious to know what they're going to do for the 17 Pro models to keep things moving forward. At this point I think the only thing that could push me to upgrade would be a 48MP 5× telephoto lens. Or a 4th camera that's a 10× or 15× lens, though going handheld with that would be tricky. Another thing that might convince me to upgrade? A FUCKING PRO COLORWAY THAT ISN'T SHITTY AND BORING!

With the advent of the iPhone 16 (non-Pro version), Apple put the two lenses parallel to each other instead of on a diagonal so you can shoot spatial photos. Like your two eyes (assuming you have two functional eyeballs), shooting with two lenses spaced apart can add depth information to what you see (or photograph). Sure, the two lenses on the iPhone aren't spaced as far apart as your eyes, but it's still enough spacing to create a stereo image thanks to the iPhone's LiDAR depth sensor which can build a depth map.

The iPhone Pro has had parallel lenses for a while, but until the new 16 Pro, you've only been able to shoot spatial video. Now you can shoot spatial photos as well. These photos are meant to be displayed on Apple's astronomically expensive $3,500 Vision Pro.

Apple gives you no way of viewing spatial images on your iPhone. So if you don't have a Vision Pro, the only way I know to view the 3D image is, unbelievably, to post them to Facebook because they have had the ability to create 3D images for a while. It's just that iPhone's LiDAR depth data makes them better than usual since depth doesn't have to be interpreted.

But having to go through FACEBOOK?!? This is really fucking shitty of Apple.

They could easily build 3D viewing into iPhone's Photos app... drag your finger on the screen to change the angle... or pivot your iPhone to change the angle. It's about the biggest no-brainer there is, but nope. Apple demands you spend $3,500 additional in order to view what you shot on your iPhone.

So what I did to share them here is take some test shots of my cats, upload them to Facebook, then screen record my mouse changing the angle to see the 3D effect of the spatial images.

The result is very good (no thanks to Apple). When you play this shot of Jake showing off his junk, note how his foot in the air and the folds in the blanket have really good separation...

This shot of Jake is both impressive and a big ol' mess at the same time. The LiDAR sensor didn't register his whiskers, so they are merged with the background and look nuts. But the rest of him? How cool is this?

Shame about the whiskers. Maybe in the future Apple will add an improved LiDAR sensor to pick up smaller details. I wonder if there's a way to manually edit the depth map so I could paint the whiskers back in? Something I should look into...

Do I want an AppleVision Pro so I can see my spatial photos in real 3D? Of course I do. But do I have $3,500 to spend on one? No I do not. Hence Facebook. My guess is that Apple will eventually release an AppleVision (minus the Pro) which is actually affordable. Until then I'm hoping that Apple (or a third party) will at least give us a way of looking at the 3D images on our iPhone somehow. It's fucking embarrassing that Apple hasn't done something already.

Though given some of the curious decisions they made with my new iPhone 16 Pro Max, that's pretty much Apple in a nutshell.

It's gotten to the point that I don't want to look at my news feed because it's all political bullshit and I'm just too tired to engage with any of it. After skipping past a bunch of stuff that was only guaranteed to enrage me, I stopped at a story headline I didn't understand at first... Keller ISD students with lunch debt of $25 or more to be served alternative meals, district says.

Now, I'm sure that a lot of people would read this story and say "Oh... well it's not like they're letting kids starve, so that's okay! If the freeloader kids don't like what they're being served and can't pay for a full meal like everybody else, they can just starve then!"

But, yeah, I am definitely not one of those people.

Some kid who was born into poverty is going to be even more stigmatized by his peers because he's getting a fucking sandwich instead of a proper meal. And, as God is my witness, I will NEVER understand how Good "Christian" People™ can claim to give a shit about children when they are thrilled to abandon them the minute they leave the womb.

This is fucking disgusting.

Instead of having my taxes go to fucking billionaires who get all the breaks and have all the loopholes to avoid paying a fucking dollar into the infrastructure that they directly benefit from, give my contribution to hungry kids.

Fuck EVERYBODY involved in this reprehensible system who thinks that this is okay.

I'd advocate for a Go-Fund-Me to pick up the slack that this community isn't willing to subsidize... but it's just like these kind of assholes to spend it on a new football field or some such stupid shit instead of writing off children's lunch debt as the money was intended for.

Crap like this makes me as mad as I have ever been. These are KIDS! Do you think they are in any way responsible for their situation? At least try to help them have a fucking childhood before they get beat down by a society who happily vilifies and attacks the poor.

It amazes me that people can be made aware of something atrocious like this in the Year of Our Lord 2024 and say "Fuck those hungry kids!" Because this is precisely what that is.

I didn't sleep at all last night. I'd try... but then found myself grabbing my phone to see what havoc Hurricane Milton was unleashing on friends I have in Western and Central Florida (where I have many friends, because I used to have work in Orlando).

But what was once a Category 5 Hurricane was downgraded to a Category 4 Hurricane then was downgraded yet again to a Category 3 Hurricane once it made landfall. Apparently it plummeted to a Category 1 by the time it made it to Orlando. Which is not to say that everything is peachy, it's just that it's a lot less worse than it could have been. Definitely less worse than it was projected to be.

So today I got up texting with friends. Those who left Florida are returning. Those who stayed are picking up the pieces. Some were okay but without power. Some were without power and had flooded streets. Others were relatively untouched, and just had to gather up debris.

Florida was very, very lucky.

But not entirely.

Because the entire time after Milton was first announced as having been formed, I had to read the most inane fucking bullshit on social media sites from the tinfoil hat brigade that I've ever seen. Most of it having to do with "The Gubermint" using "Weather Control" to "Create Hurricanes to Attack Red States Ahead of the Election just like they did in North Carolina!"

Jesus Christ.

It's like... come on. These same people don't think Climate Change is real because "man isn't enough of a force to affect the weather" and yet they think President Biden has a weather control device in The White House basement? Or is it the Jews? It's on the same satellite as their giant space laser maybe.

And of course logic goes right out the fucking window.

If this technology existed and presidents have access to it... you just fucking know that President Trump would have used it. He masturbates to the idea of taking revenge on his enemies and couldn't help but use that tech if it existed. And if it was only just now developed (while at the same time having existing for decades... DO YOUR RESURCH!) and Biden is the first president in history to have control of it... why the fuck would he aim a hurricane at the biggest Democrat-held regions of Florida? Tampa, Orlando, and even WOKE DISNEY WORLD were his targets? That's huge Democrat territory! Huge!

And it's always these dipshits throwing out stuff that they don't even understand like CLOUD SEEDING! and HAARP! and 5G! and RADIO WAVES!

Cloud seeding is my favorite conspiracy theory, because it's a "technology" that we're not even sure actually works and, even if it did work, it's just not possible to use it at the scale that would be required. As explained in this post...

From Meteorologist Nick Lilja — October 8 @ 8:25am
   
Building on my previous post, it's important to recognize the difference between cloud seeding and full-scale climate manipulation.
   
In my last post, I discussed the manipulation of air parcels and the atmosphere as a whole. It simply can't be done because the energy and work (the physics version of "work," not human effort) required to manipulate the air over something as small as a pot of boiling water is already quite large. Scaling that up to the entire atmosphere is, frankly, not possible, especially when considering other energy factors like solar and oceanic energy, which far exceed anything humans could contribute.
   
So, attempting to steer or manipulate a storm or hurricane in any particular direction is impossible.
   
For those suggesting I "Google" cloud seeding, I want to assure you that no one gets through an Earth Science degree or a 15-year career as a meteorologist without encountering such topics. I've read scientific papers and scholarly articles on the subject—no need for Google.
   
Does cloud seeding happen? Yes.
   
Does it work? We can't know.
   
Here's an example to explain why:
   
A typical cloud might be 2 miles wide and 25,000 feet tall. Some quick math shows that it contains about 2,189,564,415,845.94 cubic feet of air. That’s two trillion, one hundred eighty-nine billion, five hundred sixty-four million, four hundred fifteen thousand, eight hundred forty-five point nine four cubic feet.
   
Most cloud seeding is done by small airplanes. But let’s think big and use a C-130 cargo plane. A C-130 has about 5,000 cubic feet of potential payload space. That payload is only 0.00000025% of the volume of that cumulus cloud.
   
Could the C-130’s payload help a single cloud grow slightly taller for a brief period? Perhaps. But we can’t measure the difference it makes because there is no "control" cloud to compare it against.
   
Sure, it has rained from cloud-seeded clouds before. So let’s assume the cloud only rained because it was seeded. Great, you've nucleated some water vapor around the seeded material. Now you have raindrops forming around those particles.
   
Once the raindrops fall out of the cloud, they take all the seeding material with them. Then what? Do you seed again? And again? And again? Given the size and scope of this process, you can see how entropy (as discussed in my previous post) becomes a massive factor. It takes a lot of work to bring order to this chaos.
   
And even with all that effort, we still can't effectively measure the impact.
   
Furthermore, seeding a single cloud is vastly different from trying to seed an entire hurricane. As I mentioned previously, a typical hurricane contains around 78,824,318,970,453,922.64 cubic feet of air. That’s seventy-eight quadrillion, eight hundred twenty-four trillion, three hundred eighteen billion, nine hundred seventy million, four hundred fifty-three thousand, nine hundred twenty-two point six four cubic feet.
   
Now, the payload of that same C-130 represents about 0.0000000000025% of the volume of the hurricane.
   
For context, salt makes up about 3.5% of seawater, sodium about 0.2% of soft water, and chlorine about 0.003% of pool water.
   
A C-130’s cloud-seeding payload represents 0.0000000000025% of the water vapor in a hurricane.
   
Even if cloud seeding were attempted, given the raindrop formation processes in a hurricane (have you ever noticed how much smaller raindrops are in tropical systems?), the effort would be washed out almost immediately.
   
And I'm left asking, "then what?", again.
   
None of this is a feasible solution to an end goal of some sort of control and manipulation of our atmosphere. It simply can't be done with any sort of measurable outcome - good, bad, or otherwise.

But don't go trying to foolishly explain any of this shit to the people throwing out all this stupid bullshit (like infinitely dim Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene who, yet again, has me wondering how she has enough brain power to keep breathing, let alone compose a tweet).

The simple fact is that simple people don't give a shit about truth or facts. All they want is to bite into absolutely anything which fits their ignorant narrative. And then repeat it without any proof or evidence so they can look "smart" (if that's what you want to call it). And if something challenges their views strongly enough they will never concede the point... they'll just move on to the next idiotic talking point they can find (or dream up).

I never take anything off the table. It's always possible that some technology or some new science has been developed that is so incredibly complex and unfathomable that it might as well be magic (because ALIENS!). So could there be some magical technology out there that can control the weather? Sure. But is this weather control drama some massive enterprise with hundreds of people involved who are all able to keep it a secret? That really is nuts. Two people can only truly keep a secret if one of them is dead. But hundreds?!?

And let's be real, if Biden did have access to weather control tech that could create massive hurricanes, and he was willing to use it against American citizens... Mar-A-Lago would be the first target. And needless to say the droughts in The Great Liberal State of California would be a thing of the past.

Come on comspiracy theorists... at least put a little thought into the crazy shit you're peddling.

The last time the Aurora Borealis was a thing back in May, I dragged out my camera and tripod and was disappointed with the shots I got compared to what others were getting. So when I heard that she would be making a repeat performance last night, I thought I'd study up how to take better photos this time around. Then ultimately decided I didn't care enough to do that. I'll just look at other people's photos and stay inside where it's warm

But then I remembered that I have a new iPhone and decided to throw on a jacket to see what happens when I used it to snap some photos...

What people are not saying is that you don't just walk out your door and see this. It's barely visible until you pull out your phone or camera and make a long exposure. To actually walk outside and see this you need to go to Norway. Or Alaska (which is where I saw it for realsies). Or somewhere way north. Still... it's pretty to look at through my iPhone.

I kept looking through my bedroom window and waited to see if the pink/red got stronger before going outside, because at the start it was mostly green like last time. And yes, before you ask, I changed the photo style in iPhone Camera from my new go-to "Amber" undertone to the "Vivid" filter setting (which was my former happy place in the app before we got "Amber")...

Some interesting things to note...

First, all of the above photos were shot with the wide-angle lens. I was really hoping to get something cool out of the new 48MP ultra-wide lens, but the results were terrible. It's as if the shake reduction is not working and the "Vivid" setting wasn't doing anything to help. All I could get without a tripod were grim, blurry photos. So disappointing...

Second, I shot a couple videos to capture the shifting lights, but that turned out even worse. I think if I got my tripod that I could have gotten something worthwhile, but my cats were already pissed off enough that I had left them.

Third, when I looked through my photos more carefully this morning, I found that what I really liked was when the stars shined through the aurora. Now I really wish I had grabbed my tripod, because I would have liked to have gotten a crisper take of that. But still, the iPhone's shake reduction is darn good. Considering how small the stars are, I expected a lot more blur than what I got. This is a 100% pixel crop of how iPhone did with the wide-angle lens...

Fourth, I opened my laptop this morning and of course social media is overflowing with "tHIs iS nOt NORmal! ThIS IS The hEAVy metaLs ThAT thE GuberMINt aRE putTing InTO The air to CREaTE hURRICaNes!" Because of course. We can't have nice things any more because despite explanations by scientists and astronomers as to what's happening, everything has to fit into some nonsensical confirmation bias narrative. Everything. It must be fucking exhausting spending so much time trying to sus out what the latest conspiracies are and how they can sandwich into the demented fantasies that people are building to explain the world around them. Fantasies which don't rely on empirical evidence, rational thought, or all the evil lying scientists around the world who have been paid by NASA to deceive us from the truth. It's absolutely bonkers that we've regressed back to the Stone Age, and everything humanity has learned is being tossed out the window in favor of absolute bullshit. But that could just be my eight COVID boosters talking. I get vaccinated because I have respiratory issues and getting COVID could kill me, so I guess I'll just keep believing in science so I can survive even though it means that I am crazy-stupid for believing in science? Who the fuck knows any more.

And there you have it. A pretty nice display of this cool consequence of stronger-than-usual solar storms hitting earth's magnetic field and interacting with gasses in the upper atmosphere which is visible further south than usual.

Or it's Obama and the Deep State using unicorn blood as a sacrifice to satan for summing death and destruction upon the earth which our prayers to Jesus combated, thus creating pretty lights. Or what the fuck ever you want to believe. I give up.

PLEASE BEWARE: Loads of fake charities are popping up trying to get you to donate to Hurricanes Milton and Helene relief efforts. Before donating anything anywhere, I implore you to check CharityNavigator.org and be sure that 1) The charity actually exists... and 2) The charity has a ranking which puts maximum dollars into the relief efforts.

If you want an easy way to help out, GlobalGiving.org has vetted charities for all kinds of causes. Their Hurricane Milton Relief page is right here (and they have a 97% rating from Charity Navigator).

If you want to donate to help animals in crisis situations, The Human Society of The United States is a great choice (and they have a 98% rating from Charity Navigator).

Meanwhile Jake and I are taking a break before I get back to my long, long list of weekend chores. This morning I started with taking apart the cat shelters and testing the warming pads so Fake Jake won't freeze if he's outside this winter... then taking apart the Litter Robots to give them one last deep cleaning before winter... then start in on the 20 loads of clothes I need to wash... then painted a wall I repaired last night... and here we are at 3:30 already.

And I'm exhausted. Might have something to do with only getting four hours of sleep last night because I was aurora-watching (or rather not getting to see any aurora to watch). This weekend is going to fly by.

Which is unfortunate. I could really use some sleep.

Doesn't really feel like Sunday because I've been working around the house all weekend, but Sunday it must be... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Andrew's Back! My primary form of entertainment is YouTube. There's a vastly huge amount of content, no "show" ever gets "canceled" by a shitty network, and I buy a Premium Subscription so there's no ads (and I get my money's worth, believe me). But what I love most is discovering new stuff, being exposed to new ideas, learning something new, and meeting new people. A few months ago I "met" Andrew Feinstein when his video I Turned a Stranger into My Best Friend in 48 Hours. It was wonderful. And I didn't understand how he had only a few hundred subscribers with such quality content. Then today I saw he released another video a month ago that's another banger (I should have SUBSCRIBED ALL instead of just SUBSCRIBE). I present 50 Hours in the Most Remote Town in the USA (and he now has almost 6,000 subscribers!)...

And here's the first video I watched of his that is so good...

If you want to see his other two videos, here's his YouTube Channel.

   
• WHOA! Clever people making clever short films is the gift that keeps on giving...

I haven't seen Dustin Milligan since Schitt's Creek ended. I'll take a dozen more of these of a lot of what's streaming online.

   
• Treat! I wish that I could get excited about something the way this monkey gets excited for grapes!

This channel has some great videos.

   
• The One True Index! Watching John Oliver lose his shit over Waffle House is what I needed...

Waffle House was a complete mystery to me until I first happened across it when I was working in The South. We don't have them here. I was driving home from work at 1:00am, saw that Waffle House was open and was all "I could go for a waffle!" and stopped in. And it's a different world in these restaurants. I have seen all kinds of shit go down, and it doesn't have to be at 1:00am. I've seen crazy shit at lunchtime. Once when I dropped in late at night for a fried egg sammy (I'm thinking 10:00pm or something like that) and, after I finished eating, the cook/waiter/bouncer came by my table and told me that I'd better sit tight because there's a fight in the parking lot and he called the police because he saw they had guns. And I was like "Oh. Can I get a piece of chocolate pie white I wait?" And then I had pie. Not a bad night for me, and I managed to get back to my hotel without getting shot. So... bonus, I guess.

   
• Not a Hans Fan! Watching this woman watch the Star Wars movies for the first time is about as good as it gets...

If you want an all new appreciation of Star Wars, all her videos are worth a watch.

   
• Smell It! In my humble opinion Saturday Night Live has been in kinda a slump, and not even Jean Smart or Nate Bargatze could snap them out of it. Sure there are good moments, but it just doesn't feel like it's banger after banger (like Nate's first appearance was). Last night was Ariana Grande's turn, and I had high hopes because she's just so perfect at skits and sketches. It was alright, but also a bit of a letdown. Some of the sketches were a head-scratcher and I was like "This is the best they could come up with for her?" But there was a great sketch that surprised me because it started so plainly...

Now that's a twist!

   
• Melania No-Show! But the sketch of the night was the cold open. Partly because it was a great idea... but mostly because they cast each character so perfectly...

How they got Dana Carvey to come back for Biden is a mystery... but I'm sure glad he did! The fact that we also get Andy Samberg and Jim Gaffigan is just icing on the cake.

   
And now back to getting ready to go to work in the morning. Bleh.

There's two brands that I'm loyal to. Apple and Ninja Kitchen. That's it.

If I need a kitchen appliance, I see if Ninja has one and then just buy that. No wasting my time comparison shopping because everything I've ever purchased from them has been great and fairly priced. Ugly but great.

Anyway... My mom's Cuisinart, which she bought in the 80's, still works great but the canister is cracking and I can't get a replacement. So I just bought a new Ninja. And it arrived today. THIS THING IS A BEAST! AND THE QUAD BLADES ARE SCARY AS SHIT! THIS IS NOT A FOOD PROCESSOR... IT IS WHIRLING BLADES OF TOTAL DEATH AND DESTRUCTION!

Literally scared of it.

Terrified of it. Those blades are no joke.

But... on the other hand, I'll bet it'll process the fuck out of my food, so there's that. I mean, just look at this model I got. IT HOLDS TWELVE CUPS!!! I think the old one I had maybe held 5 cups? 6 cups? Crazy. Guess I'll be cleaning out my appliance cupboard so I can make space for it.

Can't wait to pulverize the fuck out of some garbanzo beans to make falafel... or shred the fuck out of some cheese when I'm in a non-vegan mood. Ooh! And salsa! I can make salsa by the shitload now!

Before the internet was as big a thing for the public as it is now, there were bulletin board systems. Or BBSs.

You could DIAL IN with your TELEPHONE MODEM and POST TEXT-ONLY MESSAGES that other BBS users could respond to. It sounds extremely limiting... and it was... but when that's all there is, you make the best of it. While not necessarily "magic" (even by the standards of the day) it was pretty special to be able to have an online life that didn't cost money (like CompuServe and AOL did). If it was a local telephone call, then it cost you nothing but your time.

And I spent a lot of time on the local BBSs.

Oddly enough, my parents didn't have a big problem with me dialing in and tying up the phone line. Usually I was doing this after school before they got home from work, or at night when they didn't want to talk on the phone anyway. The weekend could be tricky, but even then I rarely got yelled at to get off the phone. Which means the only thing keeping me from interacting with my BBS buddies would be if one of them was dialed into the system and tying up the receiving phone line.

I still have friends that I made from those days.

And I still have a lot of good memories. Back when Coca-Cola changed their recipe to "New Coke" that everybody hated, I mentioned that I still had a six-pack of the old recipe stuff which I was saving so I could enjoy it down the line when I really needed a Coca-Cola fix. One of the other BBS users mentioned that they were going to break into my house and steal it. What happened next was something nobody expected... it turned into this massive Dungeons & Dragons style adventure game where multiple people were coming up with scenarios to steal my Coke and I was coming up with scenarios to keep them from doing so. This went on for months. And that's just one example of many I remember.

And then there were BBS Bashes which were the equivalent of Blogger Meetups which were the equivalent of Social Media Influencer Parties. Friends you only knew from their posts on the local BBS could meet-up face-to-face, which was handy to know who you were chatting with since photo-sharing wasn't easy (though it would eventually get to be easy enough that you were able to share small, low-low-low-resolution shots (assuming you had a scanner).

I still remember the main three BBSs that I frequented most. Two were from people that became friends... one was from the local library (which was run by the guy who would become my best friend). I can remember the login screen for each (carefully constructed out of ASCII characters to make something cool-looking), and I can even think back and remember the navigation to get through the boards to see new posts in different sections.

It was such a huge part of my life for such an important time in my life that it's all forever burned into my brain.

And that's something I have been thinking about a lot today when it was announced that Ward Christensen, the guy who invented the BBS along with Randy Suess, died at age 78.

If you want to see an interview with Ward (and get a feeling for what things were like back in those days!), I highly recommend watching this great documentary. It's a long one, but it's fantastic and well-worth your time...

The documentary has some names that are very familiar to me. Some of these people I even interacted with back in the day. It was easy, because the community of people using BBSs was so very small.

Rest in Peace, Ward Christensen. You were a pioneer that definded my high school years!

I used to go to Orlando 3 or 4 times a year for work, so it was inevitable that I would get caught in a hurricane at some point. And I did twice. Although since Orlando is so far inland, a hurricane there is not the same as it is when you're on the coast. It's heavy rains and strong winds while life goes on (mostly) as usual.

Except when it doesn't.

Your flight might get delayed or canceled (but that's always a possibility... hurricane or no hurricane). Maybe places will close early because they know people likely won't be wanting to go out in the weather. Or maybe plans will have to be changed for one reason or another. But it's rarely something serious.

Except when it is.

For one of the hurricanes I was in town, Walt Disney World actually closed. Which almost never happens because Disney loves money, and shuttering the parks for even a day costs them millions. This past Thursday when Hurricane Milton was battering Florida, I thought to look at the Disney app (which is still on my phone) only to see this...

Walt Disney World is open 365 days a year, so seeing everything closed tells you how serious they were viewing the situation. A quick Google search reveals that Walt Disney World has only been closed 11 times since they opened in 1971, which really drives it home.

You'd think that people would appreciate how Disney is willing to shut down to keep people safe when things get serious, but not everybody feels that way. Some people were livid that Disney would dare ruin their vacation by closing. Never mind that a potentially deadly hurricane was poised to tear through the place, WHAT ABOUT MEEEEE?!?

The parks were open the following day (Friday) and no worse for wear, so all those people griping about their "ruined" vacation only lost one day.

When it comes to Milton, it's a miracle that things weren't much worse than they were. They were certainly projected to be. I was seriously wondering if Disney World was going to be trashed or at least seriously damaged. But it wasn't, and Mickey Mouse lives to take our money another day.

Oh man: Liam Payne, Former One Direction Member, Dies at 31.

This is awful.

I was never a big One Direction fan, but I did end up really liking some of their music after "discovering" them after they had long since broken up. One of my favorite songs of all time is What a Feeling, which I believe was largely written by Payne because he would sing it at his solo gigs...

And here's the original studio version of the song by One Direction I fell in love with. It's the same, but also very different at the same time...

Liam Payne was highly talented musician who probably never got the recognition he deserved as an artist because he was part of a "boy band." What a terrible loss for his son, friends, fans, and family. 31 years old is just way too young to leave this earth.

Rest in Peace, sir.

My one and only trip to Montana was not great. It was pretty much just driving from my home in Central Washington through 3/4 of Montana to a town east of Billings that was in the middle of nowhere. I was undertaking this 12-1/2 hour insanity because my then-girlfriend wanted to attend an event for her parents, but didn't want to fly for some reason.

Our relationship did not survive the trip (which I mentioned in the "Idaho" entry on my Drunkest City in Every State entry). But the charming little city of Missoula was early enough in our journey that I have some good memories of it. The downtown, for example, is really nice. We stopped in the city after a detour to Glacier National Park, which was also nice (but insanely crowded because it was in the middle of the Summer tourist season). So far as a stop for lunch as we headed back to I-90, Missoula was aces.

But I have to really struggle to dredge up good memories of Montana (in general) or Missoula (specifically) because of how everything ended up from that trip. Indeed, the first thing that popped into my head when I found out I'd be flying into Missoula so I could attend my brother's wedding was this scene from Twin Peaks...

Leland Palmer being possessed by the demon entity BOB was not great for poor Maddie's health, alas.

But anyway...

I woke up at 5am this morning so I could head to Seattle by 5:30. This excited the cats muchly because they assumed they were getting fed early. Not being one to deny them anything, I gave them a treat before their breakfast dropped two hours later.

This being Fall, the sun was nowhere to be seen when I departed and it was dark out. I had driven short distances in the dark a couple times since having the lenses replaced in my eyeballs, but this would be the first time driving for an extended period of time. And it was much better. No halos. A manageable amount of glare. Which is a world of difference from the massive glare that was so bad before my surgery that I was afraid to drive at night and avoided it whenever possible. I'm not saying that I am now totally comfortable driving at night again (especially places I've never been before), but at least I'm able to again.

The drive to Seattle was a piece of cake, and I made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare.

So of course my flight was delayed.

But that's hardly Missoula's fault... BUT IT ACTUALLY WAS MISSOULA'S FAULT BECAUSE IT HAD BEEN COVERED IN FOG ALL MORNING! After making everybody wait, they announced that they were in a rush to get us on the plane so we could make it to Missoula before the snow. And I was like "SNOW?!?" Except once we finally arrived, this was the weather at the airport...

So, yeah, travel is just as inexplicable and strange as it was when I stopped because of the pandemic back in 2019.

Life makes more sense back home with my cats.

It's stressful being away from my cats. Doesn't matter that I have a security system, security cameras, automated litter boxes, automated water fountains, and automated feeders... they could still get sick or into trouble. So I usually hover over the security cameras to check in and set alarms at their feeding times so I can make sure that food was dispensed and I don't have to activate the backup feeders (yes, I have backup feeders, because these things are flakey as hell).

As I sit in my hotel room writing this, I can't check in because my internet back home must be down. Again. Which kinda defeats the purpose of having all this gear to take care of Jake and Jenny, but hopefully everything went okay and they got their dinner.

Tomorrow I'll fly back home and endure a couple days of them freaking out that I've returned. Both of them like to walk around the house crying in the middle of the night because they forget I came back home and can't find me. At which time I'll wake up and have to holler downstairs that I'm there and they need to come upstairs. This will frighten whichever cat is sleeping next to me, so they'll run off and the whole cycle will repeat in a couple hours.

It never used to be this way. I used to travel contantly and they were never the worse for wear.

I think because I don't travel so often now (and had a five year gap where I rarely traveled) it's more of a shock to them. Or something. It's not like I can ask them about it. And even if I could they probably wouldn't tell me because cats like to be all mysterious like that.

I'm home again and the bullets are flying... because a very special all new all Montana Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Roadside Attractions! Whenever I travel (and especially when I am traveling through rural areas of the USA) I always consult with Roadside America to see what cool, interesting, or crazy stuff might be around. I'm especially into the oddities that get reported, but the more traditional attractions are nifty too. The South Missoula, Montana region I was in didn't have a lot of listings, but there were a few. The first being The Squashed Cat concrete sculpture which sits outside a parking garage in Missoula proper...

Next up was the Giant Silver Slipper...

And lastly there was Cowgirl in a Beer Mug...

Roadside America never disappoints. I took a pass on the Wall of Elk Heads and the Doll Museum.

   
• Hands-Not-Free Driving! The rental car I got was a new Chevy Malibu. It had some features I really wish I had on my old piece of shit car (backup cameras, for one), some features I hated (the braking system is abhorrent, and I never felt truly in control of the car), and some features I am on the fence about. The biggest being something called "Lane Assist." There are cameras that can see the lane boundaries, and if the car thinks you are getting too close to one side or the other, it will nudge your wheel in the opposite direction. At first I was confused because I had no idea this was a feature... but it didn't take long before I understood what was going on. It's kinda cool in many respects, but when I tested it? Not so much. I let go of the wheel as I was approaching a corner with no other cars present. The car dutifully drifted back to the center of the lane. But then continued to drift until it went over the center line. The next time I tried it, the car started ping-ponging around the lane a bit. But here's the real problem... when they repair roads with tar, it's shiny for a while. When the light hits it just right, it appears white. The Lane Assist sees this as a lane border, gets all confused, then kinda freaks out. So... while this is a nifty feature in theory, I think that I'd opt to turn it off because it proved to be more annoying than anything else.

   
• WARNING! There is one more "feature" in the Chevy Malibu that I found stupid as hell. When I was testing the "Lane Asisst" I took my hands off the wheel, but was still very much ready to take over if something went wrong (and had to more than once!). But the car took my non-driving to be an indication that I wasn't paying attention and was texting on my phone or something. Because this is the message it displayed on the center console...

And it's like... I was focused on driving. UNTIL I HAD TO READ THIS MESSAGE! What the fuck? The car takes your attention away from driving to tell you to focus your attention on driving? Who thought this was a good idea? The car also offered a helpful suggestion on the main console...

Yeah, buddy. I'll get right on that.

   
• It's Big! Montana's nickname is Big Sky Country, and you see it everywhere... even when you were near mountains like I was...

BUT ZOMFG! THE CONTRAILS! LOOK AT THE CONTRAILS! THE GUBERMINT IS OUT TO KILL US AND CONTROL THE WEATHER WITH PLANES DUMPING CHEMICAL CONTRAILS! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE! Or it's just frozen water vapor that is released in the exhaust when jet fuel is burned. Maybe it's just that.

   
• And speaking of the gubermint trying to kill us! I have long believed that Montana must be one of the reddest states in the country. When I looked into it, I was very wrong. They don't even crack the top ten. Don't get me wrong... they're still pretty red because they clock in at #16 on the list, but it's not the overwhelming slam-dunk I thought it was. Which explains why there are a lot of campaign posters out. And some of them are just so bizarre as to lapse into crazy territory. One that I saw that had me mentally checking out. I was leaving Target and a guy was sitting in a lawn chair after a long line of Trump posters... one of which said "STOP THE LIBS FROM KILLING MONTANA'S CHILDREN!" And I was like "Whoa! Did Biden ride through town on a horse with a shotgun and start shooting every child he sees? I must have missed that in the news." Naturally, I'm assuming that this had to do with abortion, but some of this shit is so insane that I am never 100% sure. All I do know is that most of the talking points against abortion are such outlandish lies that I can't take the arguments seriously... even though my own faith believes all life is precious and abortion isn't really on the table except in cases where other life will be lost or compromised. And yet... this IS still fucking America, so my personal beliefs don't get to dictate what other fucking people do. That comes from believing in the freedom American's have to choose their own faith. Or no faith. But I guess some people don't give a shit about liberty unless everybody believes the exact same they do, and that's also America. Unfortunately.

   
• Home Again! My initial plans were to meet up with a friend tomorrow and go snap photos in Glacier National Park. I have already been, but it was the middle of Summer when the crowds were insane. I thought it might be nice to walk around the parts of the park that are still open and play around with the camera on the iPhone 16 Pro. Alas my friend had something come up and couldn't make it, so I decided to change my flight and come home a couple days early. Boy have I turned into a homebody as I've gotten older! There was a time I would have just forged on ahead and went looking for adventure. Now I'd rather sit on the couch watching television with my cats. Especially as the weather turns colder!

   
And there you have it. My two days in Montana are over, and I probably won't be flying anywhere until next year, so I guess that's the extent of my travels in 2024. At least that's what my cats are probably hoping.

The last time I had Amazon Prime, I called and canceled because they suddenly stopped delivering items in two days as promised. It was a stupid ordeal to go through, but I wasn't getting what I had paid for... and still had months left in my annual plan.

Then a few months ago I bought a month of Prime to catch up on their movies and shows I had missed. I was shockled to find out that they were once again offering two days delivery on purchases! How handy! And so I paid for an annual membership again.

And ended up getting fucked again.

After getting 2-Day delivery with no problems for months, all of a sudden they stopped delivering in two days again.

So I called to cancel and get my money back.

Again.

And had to go through the same stupid shit all over. Again. They transfer me around. They tried to convince me that it's not two day delivery, it's two days from when it ships (THEN WHY ARE YOU WAITING FIVE DAYS TO SHIP STUFF? WHAT HAPPENED? YOU SHIPPED SAME DAY JUST LAST WEEK!). And of course it still very clearly says two day delivery on their website.

So what the fuck?

Why does it exist for months, then all of a sudden stop existing?

As a last ditch effort to keep me from canceling, the service agent felt the need to inform me that I had been enjoying free Prime shipping on 98 items that I had ordered.

"YES. AND I RECEIVED ALL 98 OF THOSE ITEMS IN TWO DAYS, NOT SEVEN TO TEN DAYS LIKE WHAT YOU'RE GIVING ME NOW!"

I guess I will never learn.

But I honestly thought that Amazon opening a new shipping hub to the east of me when I already had a hub to the west of me was the reason they got back on track.

But nope.

I guess Jeff Bezos needed another fucking yacht, or whatever, so they had to cut costs by lying about the service they promise when you buy a membership. Which makes about as much sense as anything.

Streaming subscription fees have been rising while content quality is dropping.

It blows my fucking mind that there are surveys about truly obvious shit like this. Are people really sitting around wondering "Is the quality of streaming service content dropping even as they charge us more money?" Of course they fucking aren't. It's a matter of absolute fact that needs no thought.

Netflix gives Zack Snyder absurd fucking amounts of money to crap out his shitty fucking Rebel Moon movies, raises prices so they can pay for them, then cancels a bunch of quality shows because the money to keep them going has gone to Zack Snyder. Shows are not given time to find an audience. They are either a massive hit out of the gate or they are canceled.

I remember way back in the early days of streaming how much I loved that I could pick and choose the networks I wanted to watch and didn't have to pay for bundles with channels I would never watch. I thrilled to the fact that I could watch stuff commercial-free. It was television utopia.

And here we are, back to stupid-ass fucking bundles and stupid-ass fucking commercials.

I truly hope a company comes along real soon now to disrupt the streaming industry like Netflix did all those years ago. Because Netflix is now everything they used to be against, and we need a new Netflix to bury them.

I fucking detest career politicians.

As I looked down my ballot I decided that anybody with more than two terms in office wasn't getting my vote and I just don't give a shit. If the alternative candidate was too awful to consider (and they all were), I made a write-in vote with a qualifying officer from The League of Women Voters.

In my head, that should be the maximum. Two terms. Anything longer and the only thing that most of our asshole "public servants" become focused on is maintaining the money and power that their position has given them. It's not focusing on the people they are supposed to be working for... it's re-election.

And I am done.

The only way we're going to get politicians who really serve the people is to make it so that government positions are actually designed to be a call to serve.

And not the overpaid, neverending gravy train that they are now.

Poll after poll after fucking poll has revealed that Americans want term limits. But the people who decide how many terms can be held are the politicians who benefit from them being unlimited, so guess what we get?

Not the will of the people, that's for fucking sure.

I will never understand why the office of The President of the United States of America is limited to two terms when Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell can park their asses in office for an eternity as US Senators to clean up with cash from the Big Pharma lobby for voting against American citizens, generally, and Washington citizens, specifically, to get paid.

Without term limits, we are held hostage by our politicians and judges. And we forever will be so long as they get to be the ones who decide that it's going to be that way.

Politics have this country so divided that we're more interested in making sure our side wins at any cost than to be sure that the people on our side are still on our side.

So I'm not playing that game this time.

Being "on the internet" means that you're going to see some crazy shit.

While I was in Montana I got an email that was crazy shit indeed. Somebody sent me an invoice from Blogography to pay for Blogography that was sent by The Blogography Support Team...

   
The fact that they decided to look through my blog to find a photo to make it feel authentic gets big bonus points. If I wasn't Blogography, then I might have fallen for it!

Even if they spelled my name with a lower-case "d" in the opening.

And so...

No. I will not be paying portal me with payment me from support me. Though I was tempted to click on the link to find out exactly how much money I was asking myself to pay me.

But not tempted enough to risk a virus for looking.

Sorry to me about that.

After work yesterday I went to the grocery store to pick up... stuff.

I didn't know what I wanted. Nothing sounded good. I just knew that I was out of just about everything and I needed to go to the store. I guessed that I'd just figure out what I should be buying when I got there. Except that wasn't the case. I just kind of meandered down the aisles aimlessly.

And I wasn't alone.

There was a bird hopping around who looked equally confused as to what they should be buying...

It was tough to sleep wondering what happened to the bird.

What do stores do when a bird gets trapped in their shop?

Hopefully at least make a little effort to help it find its way back outside.

Cats are weird.

As you're about the find out, I am usually petting the cats one-handed because I need to be working on my laptop with the other. Usualy it's fine. They get belly rubs. I get a jump on my work day. Everybody wins.

Except when it comes to Jenny, my spoiled little princess. If I have to stop petting her for a second because I need both hands to type or need to flip pages of a document, she gets frustrated and starts meowing to be petted. If I don't pet her how she wants, she gets frustrated and starts meowing to be petted differently. And if that doesn't work, she gets up and comes over to demand it. Sometimes I try to recover before she gets all the way up off the bed, which leads to awkward situations like this...

My sweatshirt sleeve is the same color as the blanket so my hand is a ghost!

Yesterday I start work around 5:30am because I have to respond to emails before Europe ends their work day. My cats know this. They hear me typing away and used to just come up and hang out on my electric blanket while I work until it's time for their breakfast. But now every morning is drama. When I wake up and the cats hear me clicking away on the keyboard it starts a chain of events...

1. Jenny will uses the Litter Robot downstairs, then start crying. Loudly.
2. I'll holler down for her to get her fuzzy butt up here, then hear her dashing up the stairs.
3. She'll spend five minutes wanting to be petted, then plop down wanting belly rubs. I've gotten real good typing one-handed.
4. Jake finally wakes up, moseys upstairs, then sits on the bedroom floor staring at us.
5. He'll then leave to go use the upstairs Litter Robot.
6. Eventually he'll come back so he can use his night vision to stare out back from the bedroom window perch.
7. When he's had enough, he'll jump on the bed and annoy his sister, demand pets for a few minutes, then lay down... hopefully not on top of Jenny.
8. Eventually they both fall asleep and I can go back to work.
9. At around 6:30, Jake goes to the stair banister cat shelf and stares at me through the door until the breakfast alarm goes off at 6:55.
10. Jenny runs down stairs at around 6:45 so she's ready for breakfast ten minutes later.

This happens every morning now. Same routine. Day after day. Why does Jenny cry her head off when she could just come up? Why does Jake think going to the cat shelf is essential to get breakfast? Why do cats do anything they do? Nobody knows. They're cats.

And speaking of cats...

When Jake is wandering around with Mufasa in his mouth, he'll drop him in random places. Often times in the middle of a walkway. Which makes going to the bathroom in the middle of the night a hazardous prospect from time to time. It certainly was last night when my foot dragged across Mufasa because it was dark and I couldn't see him...

I knew it wasn't my cats because they were on the bed with me. But it could have been anything else... like a dead rodent they dragged in from the catio... or, even worse, a live rodent they brought in from the catio.

So I turned on the lights and, yep, it was just Mufasa. Which should have been my first thought. But it wasn't.

Because cats are weird.

I've had entirely too much work to do this weekend, but I'm making sure I take a break to blog... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• It's nice to be nice sometimes. As somebody who loves baseball, I was wiping away tears when the story of Trea Turner's miraculous turnaround for the Phillies came out last year. I had no idea that they made a documentary about what happened. It's just 20 minutes long on Netflix, but even if you're not a baseball fan this is worth your valuable time to see what positive reinforcement can do to somebody...

Throwing hate at players for trying their best at a game they love doesn't help anything. More likely it just makes a player going through a rough patch do worse, and a little encouragement goes a long way. A lot longer than trying to break somebody down. If you've got Netflix, it's worth a look.

   
• Feels Right? Do It! There is no contest. The FRDi Show is hands-down my favorite podcast in existence. Especially if you can watch the YouTube videos of the show. Their channel has kinda morphed into the guys playing games and it's must-see entertainment for me. It's such good fun that I live for new episodes. I can just put it on and forget about the world for a while. They were on hiatus for a while, and it was really tough. But they're back now and all is right in the world. This is yet another banger episode...

It can't be all horrific political news all the time. The FRDi Show returning is just what I need right now.

   
• Vend Error! U-S-A-! U-S-A-! U-S-A-! U-S-A-! Once again, we're leading the world!

This just reaffirms my belief that men should be the ones making all decisions as to what a woman can do with her body. I mean, come on, just look how good we're doing with ours!

   
• It's only forever... not long at all. I've been on a huge Bowie kick lately. And I remain shook how much I continue to love his soundtrack for the Jim Henson film, Labyrinth. The songs are just so good. And on the top of that brillint heap of music is As the World Falls Down...

But the other songs aren't lacking by any means...

These could have been throwaway tracks for a silly kids movie. But Bowie elevated them so much that they ended up far better than they had a right to be...

Bowie's performance was flawless in every way... in the context of the film he is The Goblin King! And who else could have possibly played the part?

   
• Mayor Pete Stories! I have a complicated opinion of Pete Buttigieg. The guy has some past actions that are problematic. But for quite a while now he's just been such a smart, refreshing, reassuring voice of reason during these insane times in which we live, and I love him for it. I had never heard his coming out story, and it's as good as you'd imagine for him...

It shouldn't be this hard for people to be true to themselves and who they are. And every time I think it's getting better for the LGBTQ+ Community, something happens which makes you wonder if this toxic fucking society will ever just let people be.

   
• More HomeShit! Apple's smart home technology, HomeKit, is one of the absolute worst technologies I have ever used. It's glitchy as fuck. It has a shitty implementation. Things go wrong with it all the fucking time. I had a power outage not so long ago, and two of my automations stopped working. Which is typical. The only thing you can do when this happens is delete the automation and rebuild it. There's no fixing it. Then you cross your fucking fingers, because you may have to do it more than once before the shit works again. Interestingly enough, this morning I finally got a feature working that was promised with iOS/TV OS/HomePod OS version 18.1: Specifying which device you want to use as a primary hub and border router to the outside world. Despite having everything upgraded to the beta 18.1 OS, I was never allowed to choose shit. This morning there as another OS update so I installed it remotely, then I turned off the power to all devices with my remote electrical plugs for an hour, then turned them back on. And then...

And of course I selected the Living Room AppleTV. Why wouldn't I? Not only is it the newest AppleTV, BUT IT'S ALSO PLUGGED DIRECTLY INTO MY FUCKING ROUTER SO IT HAS THE FASTEST, MOST RELIABLE CONNECTION TO THE INTERNET! It drove me fucking insane that until now Apple would regularly select some HomePod mini somewhere that was slow as fuck. Apparently Apple's determination was always which device has the latest OS update, not which device is the best for the job. Typical Apple bullshit. We should have been able to select our preferred hub all along.

   
• NEWSFLASH! Rudy Giuliani is losing everything to the Georgia election workers he defamed. Oh. Oh that's too bad. Say, did y'all know that the "pronghorn" is the second-fastest land animal after the cheetah? It's kinda a goat. It's kinda an antelope. But it's actually not either. It's an entirely separate animal! And it lives right here in the USA! Wyoming is famous for them! Wyomingites are very proud of their pronghorns, as they should be!

   
And now back to your regularly-scheduled Sunday.

So this is how it's going to be?

Apple shitting over everything with A.I. and "smarts" whether you want it or not?

I regularly have to list a bag size in millimeters, then put the weight of the product it can hold. And the format is to use an "=" after the size. Such as "190×250=240g"

This is something I do a lot. A lot. All of a sudden, when I type "190×250=" Apple "Intelligence" will automatically insert "47500"... and the only way to get rid of it is to backspace FIVE TIMES. It doesn't allow you to hit backspace once to delete the entire number in one go (as it would when a word is suggested on my iPhone).

This is categorically fucking stupid. There should be a keyboard shortcut when you want to insert math into an email. Apple Mail shouldn't just assume you want math and pop it into your email when you NEVER FUCKING ASKED FOR IT.

Living in the future is so awesome, y'all. A.I. is here, has no fucking clue what it's doing, but is taking a big ol' crap on you anyway. Typical.